Aiden McGeady may be the fall guy

Good Friday? Depends who you ask.

For thousands of fans, and a fair few floating voters, last night’s friendly at the Aviva Stadium provided the perfect distraction on a day that draws increasing invective in an ever-more secular country and plenty of them availed of the odd pint and burger to go with their game of footy.

Not a bad hat-trick, that.

This was supposed to be a day for others besides to gorge themselves on rationed fare and stake a claim for Euro berths given the week’s build-up had been dominated by talk of opportunities for players previously unseen in Irish jerseys, and others who hadn’t graced them as often as they might like.

It was only to be expected that the focus should have centred on rookies such as Alan Judge, Eunan O’Kane and Jonathan Hayes, but this was as big a night for the veterans Kevin Doyle and Aiden McGeady, whose stars have waned on both the club and country scenes.

Then again, this was a nothing friendly at the fag end of March and the priority for any player, regardless of circumstances or nationality, on nights like these is to report back to the day job untroubled by injury. Doyle’s exit less than half an hour in reinforced that.

The Wexford man was fantastic until he suffered a deep gash in his leg from a 50-50 tackle with Timm Klose, but the manner in which he kept running until the ball was cleared before succumbing to the turf said everything of his approach on this most mundane of occasions.

Doyle hustled and bustled, which was more than most managed over the 90 minutes, but his touch was good and he showed awareness in intercepting one lazy Swiss pass and flicking an unpromising corner onto a Swiss post from a narrow angle.

He looked, in fact, every inch the player who has reportedly settled well into life in Denver where his influence on the Colorado Rapids team and locker room has grown after a slow start. McGeady, on the other hand, looked a man bereft of confidence.

The last time most of us saw the 29-year old prior to this was last November when, in a cringing four-minute cameo at the end of the game against Bosnia-Herzegovina, he fresh-aired one attempted pass and appeared more lost than most in the fog.

It was a sad last act in the qualifying campaign for a player whose superb injury-time goal in Tbilisi 14 months earlier had started Ireland on the road to France and proof that he needed to escape his personal hell at Goodison Park under Roberto Martinez.

He did that last January and reported for duty in Abbotstown this week on the back of eight appearances for Sheffield Wednesday, though dispatches from Yorkshire haven’t been cause for anticipation. One local reporter, writing earlier this month, mentioned the phrase “no end product”.

McGeady’s has been a career stuck in a one-step-forward-one-step-back cycle: from his breakthrough and stagnation at Celtic to the up-and-down stint at Spartak Moscow and then the disappointment of having his move to Everton turn sour.

His declining visibility with Ireland, however, is reflective of a man who is now stuck on a slope of irreversible decline even if Martin O’Neill, the manager who gave him his chance in Glasgow as a youth, clearly wants the winger to put up his hand for the summer.

He had an hour to grasp his latest chance last night and failed.

In 61 minutes he failed to beat one opponent or, far more damnably in the modern game, deliver a cross from play that found another Irish player. With Robbie Brady having assumed most of the dead ball duties, McGeady’s input is eroded still further.

Never a defender of note, he adapted his game as best he could to earn a major role under Giovanni Trapattoni’s direction, but he was caught napping badly at one point here when Michael Lang stole in behind him to threaten Ireland’s left flank.

Still worse was the moment, just before Doyle paid for his bravery, when McGeady seemed to pull out of a tackle a handful of metres away. It was a snapshot that spoke volumes about a player whose most important battle right now is the one inside his own head.

And one who looks highly unlikely to be going to France in June.